A friend with a wife from the South reports that the regional dish known as "fried green tomatoes" is very good, but -- and it's a big but -- only if made with hard tomatoes.And that's the problem with "Fried Green Tomatoes," the movie: It's made with soft tomatoes.The soft tomatoes are the squishy sentimentality at center that dooms the movie to a timid course. It doesn't quite have the courage to face its own implications and so leaves the story that follows in a kind of blur apt to offend no one but equally incapable of moving anyone.

Annapolis is a conservative dining town, which can be frustrating, not only for enterprising restaurateurs and chefs, but for diners looking for something more interesting than broiled salmon and a New York strip. But there are pockets of invention in this beautiful city - a friend insists Annapolis has to be the most beautiful among the state capitals - and diners have rewarded places like Level and Vin 909 with steady patronage. Factors Row, which has been open, after long delays, for just a few short months, merits the same kind of attention, or at least a visit.

A FRIEND with a wife from the South reports that the regional dish known as "fried green tomatoes" is very good, but -- and it's a big but -- only if made with hard tomatoes.And that's the problem with "Fried Green Tomatoes," the movie: It's made with soft tomatoes.The soft tomatoes are the squishy sentimentality at center that dooms the movie to a timid course. It doesn't quite have the courage to face its own implications and so leaves the story that follows in a kind of blur apt to offend no one but equally incapable of moving anyone.

River Watch Restaurant is a rare find: a waterfront restaurant where the food is as good as the view. The Essex restaurant and its 110-slip marina sit at the spot where Middle River meets Hopkins Creek. During the summer, revelers crowd River Watch's deck for legendary "Sunday Funday" parties overlooking the water. But River Watch is more than a fun boaters' bar. With a kitchen that turns out careful seafood-oriented dishes and service that is attentive, though sometimes slow, the restaurant is a solid destination any time of year.

Sylvia Woods will help you put some soul into your meals.Dubbed the Queen of Soul Food, Ms. Woods has been an institution at her Harlem restaurant for three decades. And now in the recently released cookbook, "Sylvia's Soul Food," (Hearst Books) which she wrote with Christopher Styler, Ms. Woods offers readers more than 100 recipes in 10 chapters, from breakfast to desserts."Although I was cooking at home since I was a child, I had never even set foot in a restaurant until I got a job waitressing at Johnson's restaurant in Harlem to help support our family," writes Ms. Woods.

With the release of the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes," a side dish that had almost vanished from menus and home kitchens and throughout the South is on the comeback trail.The movie, which is about family and friendship in the rural South, taps into the relationship between community and cuisine. The script is full of references to Southern culinary favorites, but it is Ninny Threadgoode's (Jessica Tandy) reminiscing about fried green tomatoes served at the Whistle Stop Cafe that gives the movie its name.

"Fried Green Tomatoes," the feel-good sleeper starring Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker, Kathy Bates and the Oscar-nominated Jessica Tandy (for her role as the flashbackee who gets the story in motion) only suggests what the book it is based on spelled out: Idgie (Ms. Masterson) and Ruth (Ms. Parker) are lovers.In Fannie Flagg's 1987 novel, "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe," the two women -- who sling hash and raise a baby in a Depression-era diner in deepest Alabama -- are fast friends whose affection for one another blooms into a romance.

The best supporting actress category in the Oscar competition spans the age bracket from a teen-ager in "Cape Fear" to an 82-year-old in "Fried Green Tomatoes." It also has a Maryland connection. Mercedes Ruehl grew up in Silver Spring. Oscar winners will be announced at the annual televised Academy Awards ceremony March 30.The Evening Sun would like to know which supporting actress you feel should win: Juliette Lewis, "Cape Fear"; Jessica Tandy, "Fried Green Tomatoes"; Mercedes Ruehl, "The Fisher King"; Kate Nelligan, "The Prince of Tides," or Diane Ladd, "Rambling Rose."

Call it Langermann's Junior. The same team behind Langermann's in Canton - chef Neal Langermann and partners David McGill and Mark Lasker - have opened a new restaurant in South Baltimore. The location, 1542 Light St., was recently the home to 1542 Gastropub and before that, the Reserve. Langermann's on Light, as it's known, was open on Monday for bar service. Dining service was to begin on Tuesday. What's on the menu at Langermann's on Light? Pretty much the same fare, we've been told, as at the original Langermann's: Southern-inspired cuisines like Charleston shrimp and grits, maple smokehouse-rubbed Duroc pork chops, Cape Fear scallops and Miss Ellie's fried green tomatoes.

Salt is good? Or at least it's not bad. That's what a new meta-analysis in the American Journal of Hypertension finds. Also, a Christian Science perspective on "Millenial foodies" and a recipe for Old Bay fried green tomatoes. Scientific American declares that "It's time to end the war on salt. " It is true that the Fed's new dietary guidelines took the gloves off for salt, even while cushioning its blows to dairy and meat. the Scientific American article refers to a new meta-analysis in the American Journal of Hypertension (that)

The Canton kitchen of Neal Langermann - whose specialties include shrimp and grits, maple smokehouse-rubbed Duroc pork chops, Cape Fear scallops and fried green tomatoes - has produced Low Country meals worth swooning over. Now, the team behind Langermann's in Canton - Langermann and partners David McGill and Mark Lasker - has opened a restaurant in South Baltimore. The location, 1542 Light St., was recently home to 1542 Gastropub and before that, the Reserve. The culinary emphasis on Low Country cuisine, as interpreted by Langermann, has made the trip across the harbor.

Call it Langermann's Junior. The same team behind Langermann's in Canton - chef Neal Langermann and partners David McGill and Mark Lasker - have opened a new restaurant in South Baltimore. The location, 1542 Light St., was recently the home to 1542 Gastropub and before that, the Reserve. Langermann's on Light, as it's known, was open on Monday for bar service. Dining service was to begin on Tuesday. What's on the menu at Langermann's on Light? Pretty much the same fare, we've been told, as at the original Langermann's: Southern-inspired cuisines like Charleston shrimp and grits, maple smokehouse-rubbed Duroc pork chops, Cape Fear scallops and Miss Ellie's fried green tomatoes.

Salt is good? Or at least it's not bad. That's what a new meta-analysis in the American Journal of Hypertension finds. Also, a Christian Science perspective on "Millenial foodies" and a recipe for Old Bay fried green tomatoes. Scientific American declares that "It's time to end the war on salt. " It is true that the Fed's new dietary guidelines took the gloves off for salt, even while cushioning its blows to dairy and meat. the Scientific American article refers to a new meta-analysis in the American Journal of Hypertension (that)

I confess to feeling only slightly more rational than "Misery's" Kathy Bates. I want to strap Ellen Goodman into a chair and make her keep writing columns. Ms. Goodman, whose prose has graced newspaper pages for more than four decades, allegedly wrote her last column last week. I use "allegedly" in the hope that she was kidding. No one who has labored under the cudgel of relentless deadlines begrudges Ms. Goodman her hard-earned respite. Retirement seems too old a word for one so young in spirit.

The name may be Trapeze, but Howard County's hottest new restaurant brags that it is "circus-free" - and it is. Already a big draw in a new, mostly empty retail/office center in Maple Lawn, Trapeze gets everything just right without tricks and without being cutesy. The place is sophisticated but family-friendly. Decor is modern (high ceilings, huge windows) but welcoming (wood, warm lighting, comfortable seating in the lounge). Servers are young and hip but professional. And the food - best of all the food - is imaginative and complex but still accessible.

By Elizabeth Large and Elizabeth Large,SUN RESTAURANT CRITIC | October 13, 1996

On a Sunday morning, Fells Point is a different neighborhood from the bar-hopper's paradise it was just 12 hours earlier. The sun is bright and the air crisp on this fine fall day. A few tourists are already out for a stroll, and the mood is mellow.We are headed for Savannah, the high-end restaurant in the basement of the Admiral Fell Inn. It seems a shame to go underground on such a nice day, even for what promises to be an excellent brunch. But the rooms are lighter than I expected. The sun filters in through small windows and sparkles on the mimosas, orange juice and champagne that are complimentary with the meal (if you have a coupon)

The Canton kitchen of Neal Langermann - whose specialties include shrimp and grits, maple smokehouse-rubbed Duroc pork chops, Cape Fear scallops and fried green tomatoes - has produced Low Country meals worth swooning over. Now, the team behind Langermann's in Canton - Langermann and partners David McGill and Mark Lasker - has opened a restaurant in South Baltimore. The location, 1542 Light St., was recently home to 1542 Gastropub and before that, the Reserve. The culinary emphasis on Low Country cuisine, as interpreted by Langermann, has made the trip across the harbor.

ST. MICHAELS - It seemed a little early in the year for fried green tomatoes. But then again, these were not your everyday fried green tomatoes. They were the cultured kind, the type that keeps company with crabmeat, lobster and curry. Man, were they good. They were part of the second course of a dinner prepared by Baltimore chef Cindy Wolf, who had journeyed to the Eastern Shore to collaborate with chef Michael Rork at his Town Dock Restaurant in St. Michaels. The four-course meal, with matching wines, was part of the St. Michaels Food & Wine Festival, a weekend of culinary adventures that drew hungry crowds to St. Michaels and Tilghman the weekend of April 30. Rork, who for eight years was executive chef at the Harbor Court Hotel, left Baltimore in 1994 to run his own restaurant in St. Michaels.

By Elizabeth Large and Elizabeth Large,SUN RESTAURANT CRITIC | October 13, 1996

On a Sunday morning, Fells Point is a different neighborhood from the bar-hopper's paradise it was just 12 hours earlier. The sun is bright and the air crisp on this fine fall day. A few tourists are already out for a stroll, and the mood is mellow.We are headed for Savannah, the high-end restaurant in the basement of the Admiral Fell Inn. It seems a shame to go underground on such a nice day, even for what promises to be an excellent brunch. But the rooms are lighter than I expected. The sun filters in through small windows and sparkles on the mimosas, orange juice and champagne that are complimentary with the meal (if you have a coupon)